


Slight Miscalculation

by xiaomao



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Illustrated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 22:12:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5222846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiaomao/pseuds/xiaomao
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate falling-in-love story for Miriel and Lon'qu. Inspiration from, but not canon with, the support dialogues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slight Miscalculation

“Hey Miriel! Do you think the oatmeal will stay hotter if it's in a wood bowl or a metal bowl? I got one of each so you can test it!” Lissa said, pointing.

“I am no longer interested in experiments.” 

After Miriel was out of earshot, Lissa leaned over and whispered to Robin, “I told you! I told you something's wrong! You've got to do something. Look how depressed she is.”  
“How can you even tell? Happy and sad look the exact same on her.”  
“I can just tell!” Lissa said, slamming her spoon onto the table.

Lon'qu watched the exchange as he ladled oatmeal into his bowl. As another person for whom happy and sad appeared the same to outsiders, he knew Lissa was right. Not only that but he knew it was his fault.

“I'm running an experiment to see if it is the act of being saved or rather my proximity to you that is the cause of my increase in heart rate,” she had said to him two weeks ago.  
“Whatever, just don't put yourself in danger again. What if I hadn't been there to save you? Did you think of that?”  
“Not to worry, that stage of the experiment is over. I'm moving on to the next stage.”

She started trailing him everywhere and with her came the incessant sound of quill scratching on parchment. When he stood up, when he sat down, when he crossed or uncrossed his legs, when his hand reached out towards a piece of apple pie after dinner but paused for a brief second he could hear scratching in the interim, so he took a wheat roll instead and resented everything.

But telling her to stop meant talking to her, and talking to her meant talking to a woman, and he wasn't ready for that.

“Lon'qu, play with me!” Nowi shouted after him as he bit into his not-dessert.  
“No.”  
“You're bored! Come on, let's play chase! You'll be much happier if you play with me!” she continued, running in front of him and blocking his path.  
“I'm not bored and I'm not unhappy,” he said through a mouthful of bread.  
“Then why aren't you smiling? Happy people smile! Come on!” She tugged at his sleeve.  
“Please stop touching me,” he said, drawing his arms closer to his core and trying to turn away, but Nowi kept putting herself in front of him no matter which way he tried to walk.  
“Haha! I like your game! Left, right, left right!”  
Lon'qu sunk to the ground and buried his face in his hands. The wet grass bled through his pants and made his skin cold and clammy. He was eating a piece of bread for dessert instead of apple pie. And the sound of pen scratching paper was still audible.  
“Leave me alone,” he moaned.  
“You're no fun!” whined Nowi. “Hey Miriel! You play with me!”  
Lon'qu peaked through the fingers covering his face to watch Nowi bounding around Miriel, tugging at her cape, waving her arms. Unperturbed, Miriel continued to take notes with her gaze locked on Lon'qu.  
“Fine, if that's how you want to play, you like a challenge, huh?” Nowi backed off and suddenly sprang up off the ground, did a somersault in mid-air and landed holding Miriel's hat. “Haha! Nowi wins!”  
Without breaking eye contact with Lon'qu, Miriel thrust her right hand towards Nowi and shouted “Elwind!” A howling gust hit Nowi from behind, tearing the hat from her grip and bringing it to rest in Miriel's outstretched hand. She placed it on her head and went back to writing in her journal. For a moment Nowi looked like a deer cornered by a lion. Lon'qu picked up the bread which had fallen into his lap when his jaw went slack. He felt himself blushing for some reason.

And with a laugh, she picked up her axe, mounted Aristophanes and flew off into the sunset. The End.

Lon'qu placed the latest volume of Wyvern Wars which he'd borrowed from Sumia on the floor next to his bed. He stretched, yawned, blew out the lantern and laid down to sleep. From just outside the canvas tent he could hear the scratching of the quill pen and someone breathing.  
“Please conclude your research for the night, I cannot sleep with you watching me.”  
No response. And no sound. She must be holding her breath.  
“Did you think I didn't know you were there? I am a trained assassin, it is my job to detect others without being detected.”  
Still nothing.  
“If you are wondering why I didn't object the past 3 nights, it's because you had the good sense to leave before I wanted to sleep. Kindly show some good sense now.”  
The clapping sound of a book shutting. Rustling of fabric, and the cracking of sticks underfoot fading into the night. Lon'qu let out a sigh of relief and fell asleep in short time.

The next night he was not prepared at all for what he found when he pulled back the tent flap. There, sitting on his very own bed, in his own tent, with the journal in her lap and pen in hand, was Miriel.  
“Since you were already aware I was observing you, you'll not object to me being inside. It is more efficient. Also, I hear that imbibing the fermented juice of grapes can help calm one's anxiety in the presence of the opposite sex, so I brought you this bottle of-”  
“Get out! Get out get out get out get out get out!” he yelled, but upon concluding his outburst he found it was himself who had run away. He hovered around the edge of camp for an hour trying to calm down. She was gone without a trace when he returned to his tent, but he could not shake off the feeling of panic.

The next morning she approached him, her face stony.  
“I am happy to report that I have concluded my experiment regarding you. I'll not burden you further.”  
“Thank the Gods,” he had said. On hindsight, what a poor choice of words. Although she had been looking at him, suddenly she was looking past him, past everything. She lowered her gaze and walked away. He had never seen her lower her gaze for anyone before, and it irritated him.

He still kept an eye on her. In case there was some ridiculous twist to this experiment where she claimed it was over in order to see how he would react. But she spent most of her time reading in the barracks, far away from cliffs, rivers and oncoming horse-drawn carriages. She no longer looked at him with that soul-piercing gaze. She no longer looked him in the eyes at all. She did not conduct research of any sort. The wind seemed to blow right through her as though through a piece of gauze. It irritated him greatly.

Lissa noticed, but not anyone else. That also irritated him. And the more he thought about it, the more angry he felt. How could they not see her distress? How could they not see the danger it put her in? She couldn't go into battle like this, she would surely be cut down, and he didn't think even he could stop it. Nobody else even saw the problem, which meant it fell on his shoulders to do something about it.

“Happy and sad look the same on her,” said Robin.  
“You're all idiots,” Lon'qu muttered, taking his oatmeal and leaving the communal breakfast area.  
“What's his problem?” Robin whispered to Lissa.

That evening, Miriel rode into town and Lon'qu decided to follow her. He donned a cape, some baggy trousers and affected an old man's hunched-over posture to disguise himself in plain sight. 

She hitched her horse next to a book store and purchased a few things, then went into a small restaurant and ordered a bowl of soup. Lon'qu watched from next table over, amazed that she was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn't realize he was in the same room. She closed the book, picked up a spoon and brought the soup within millimeters of her lips before something extraordinary happened. With the back of her free hand she pushed up her glasses and … wiped her eyes. The hand holding the spoon lowered to the table and remained there. She sat motionless with gritted teeth and a furrowed brow, her knuckles digging into her forehead, her hat hiding her face from anyone who wasn't looking. For few minutes her only movement was one heave of her shoulders as she sniffed.

“Miriel!”  
Her eyes went wide with terror when she heard his voice. She looked over at him with glassy eyes, not but a few feet away, the realization that he'd watched all of it dawned on her and she grabbed her belongings and ran out the door.  
“Hey! Lady you have to pay for that!” shouted the owner. Lon'qu intercepted him and dug into his pocket.  
“Here, here, look, I'm with her, she had an emergency, she uh, suddenly became pregnant and then went into labor, women are such a mystery you know?” he said, rushing to hand over the money while watching through the window as Miriel unhitched her horse.

“Miriel, wait!”  
She didn't answer, she was already in the saddle and bringing the horse around.  
“Miriel!!” Lon'qu ran towards her, but she was already spurring the horse to gallop away. So he yelled the first thing that came to his mind that he knew would make her stop. “Your research is wrong!”

And indeed, she did stop, turned around, even. He managed to reach the side of her horse. The lights went out in the town behind them. There was nothing but a dirt road ahead and a dark grassy expanse on either side.

“Get down and talk to me.”  
“Why?” She said, still avoiding eye contact.  
“I can't stand this! What happened to you?” She bit her lip and swallowed. But he went on. “You used to be a rock, a mountain. I looked up to you!”  
“What?”  
“Come down, I can't talk knowing you could gallop off at any second.”  
So she did. Standing next to her horse, the wind rustling her robes, and her eyes hidden behind the shadow of her hat, she looked as commanding as ever.  
“Well, what is it?”  
“You said you expected I'd be there to save you in any situation, so here I am.”  
Her cheeks flushed red. “What situation are you claiming to save me from?”  
“Yourself. This isn't you. The Miriel I know would never run away from a lone swordsman, especially one without a sword.”  
“Hmh.”  
“You haven't done any research in over a week. Is that normal? The Miriel I know does her research with a single-mindedness that I envy. Nobody can distract you. Nothing breaks your composure. You were …” he searched inside for the right words, and glancing upwards, found inspiration in the night sky. “You were always above everything. Cold, reliable.”  
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, adjusting her glasses even though they were already straight.  
“Ugh! Don't you understand?” Lon'qu grabbed at his hair in frustration. “I can't just stand by and watch as the person I respect most loses her composure over … over some hired blade! I'm not worth this! I'm nobody.”

She sighed deeply. Lifting her chin, she met his eyes for the first time in over a week. “Thank you, Lon'qu. I am moved by your words. But I'm afraid nothing can be done.”  
“Don't be ridiculous.”  
“It's true. When I initiated my experiment as to whether it was the act of being saved or the proximity to you that caused my increase in heart rate, I-,” she paused to fix glasses that didn't need fixing, “I was not prepared for the results. The data were unilateral. Proximity to you causes me to experience certain heightened emotions which are,” biting her lip, “quite positive in nature. However. The data were also unilateral in describing your condition. Proximity to me causes you heightened emotions which are,” she paused to swallow, “quite negative. A most fascinating paradox, indeed. I wish to be in close physical proximity to you, which causes you anxiety and distress, which I cannot help but observe due to my heightened interest in you,” lowering her head, she pushed her glasses up but left her hand in place, “which in turn causes me distress thereby overriding the positive feelings, yes a very unique case-” she licked her lips and swallowed.

“Hmh. You've never hesitated to impose yourself on me before.”  
“For the first time, it occurred to me that I might take better account of my subjects' feelings before performing research on them. I- I did not anticipate the degree of distress I could cause you.”

All around them the sound of crickets chirping was overtaken by the tall grass rustling in the wind. Miriel gripped her hat to keep it from blowing away and clutched her journal to her chest with the other hand. Lon'qu stepped closer, so that the journal was almost touching him.  
“I am moved by your concern for me. However, your research failed to elicit one important piece of data,” he said, summoning all his willpower to proceed against rising panic and embarrassment.  
“What's that?”  
“I miss the confident Miriel who did whatever she wanted,” he said in a voice barely audible.

Miriel lifted her head again to face him. She lifted her hand to touch the side of his face, and seeing no resistance, tilted her head and kissed him.

After a nonzero length of time, she fell away from him, leaving her hand on his chest where it had ended up.  
“Hm, an increase in heart-rate. Are you not experiencing anxiety and distress due to your proximity to me?”  
“I will live.”  
“Fascinating. I insist you let me continue to study you.”  
“Acceptable,” said Lon'qu, smiling.  
They rode back to camp together on her horse, his arms around her waist while she took the reigns.

It took the others a full four days before someone noticed the change in their relationship.

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfic, thanks for reading!


End file.
